The Rose considered. “Herbal is fine, thank you.”

During their first session, the Rose saw the potential of debate with the ‘doctor of the mind’, but felt too fragmented to put forth any line of serious discussion. However, by the third week, he was confident enough to steer their discussion to the subject of right and wrong. Dr Plante took up the challenge: “My feeling, reinforced by some years in the field, is that the most reliable way to view good, or right, is that which comforts the mind, and bad as that which causes discomfort.”

“So you completely disregard moral law?”

“If you mean moral law outwardly, yes. After all, each mind has its own opinion of what is good or bad, which is usually a jumble of what one has learned from one’s parents, or read, or one’s belief in a certain dogma, birth of a particular colour or nation . . .”

“And inwardly—how would you describe inner moral law?”

“Conscience.” Plante paused. “Cultivation of conscience, if you like.”

The Rose pondered a moment, and then said, “In other words, a man should consult his own conscience, his own spirit, to make the distinction between right and wrong?”

“I think so, yes. Outwardly it appears that it is discomfort that produces wrongdoing, but my belief is that it’s the other way around.”

“That wrongdoing produces discomfort—psychological discomfort?”

The psychoanalyst drank some of his tea and looked into his cup as though expecting an answer from the herbs. Then he said slowly, “Look, the pain of the mind, in my experience, is often far greater than the pain of the body—do you agree?”

“Yes,” said the Rose, thinking back over the last three weeks. “The psychological emotional discomfort can often be extreme, and the remedies are . . .”

“ . . . are no escape.” Plante smiled. “Because they kill you. Unless you’re lucky enough to wind up here. So abiding to moral law outwardly is an artificial standard. You can conform to it all your life, feeling emotionally out of sync . . .”

“And find yourself dying of cancer.”

The doctor pointed his pen in the Rose’s direction. “Are you agreeing with me?” he asked.

“No. I was finishing your sentence. I’m familiar with the holistic theory that a life lived at odds with one’s nature results in the manifestation of an additional ‘personality’—the cancerous growth.”

“You disagree then?”

“Privately no, I think it’s uplifting—the idea that man should be able to consult his own feelings to discover what is good or bad, right or wrong for him. Because that’s what you’re saying, is it not? That this artificial standard being passed from parent to child and taught in classrooms is itself burying the human spirit? So would I therefore conclude that if the world at large were, say, taught at an early age . . .”

“They could develop a better sense of what it was that truly gave them comfort . . .”